In Response to "a Unified Dive Industry"

[theduckguru]

Want to dive? Here a free scuba diving simulator ....

OMG ... Am I in trouble now?

Alberto

At least you could have posted a link to bowl of gold fish.

 

[ScubaSteve]

And I recall you telling people that many times. In fact IIRC you said some pretty ignorant things to people that disagreed with you. Sales is, well...let's say there is room for improvement .

And so you will always pay more than you have to... as no one beats our prices...

Cheers

 

[DiveNav]

At least you could have posted a link to bowl of gold fish.

Seen in the contest of the post to which I responded, the image represents the angry mob of dive professionals chasing me away from the dive industry.

It is called Humour where I come from ... but maybe not here?

Alberto

 

[Thalassamania]

... You see the idea currently floating is that cheap internet sales, poor training (by independent Instructors) and less dive shops is somehow good for the industry. The reality right now is LDS's are closing at record rates. A culmination of the economy as a whole and years of abuse by manufacturers. Right now, many of you will walk into an LDS, try things on and then go buy them for hundreds less on the internet. Soon, the ability to try gear on will be gone.

I don't know about you, but buying dive gear without a chance to try it on first worries me. It also worries me that in a sport where retention is horrible (1.5 out of 10 stay in the sport after OW,) making it less personable can't be good.

Let me stipulate, from the start, that I sit two standard deviations out from most of the "industry." But that gives a sometimes unique vantage point. I could care less about being able to try anything on, I know how things work, where they go and how they go there and for over thirty years have had my students buying their gear from an approved equipment list with my help as to sizing. This is really not rocket science.

You, the consumer ultimately pay more for everything in the sport without your LDS.

Forget about what I pay, my students get there gear at 35% to 50% off of typical retail.

You'll pay more for training, you'll pay more for gear service (shipping it to and from - and shipping rates keep rising,) you'll not dive as much locally, you'll have to return gear through the mail when it doesn't fit... etc.. etc..

Yes ... my students pay more for training than a single O/W course, but when you look at the whole package, gear costs, add up all the equivalent courses, etc., they come out one to two thousand to the good.

Give it some thought... It's your money, it's your sport... what can be done?

Let the LDS dinosaurs die, let the less than nimble manufacturers go by the way, let the middlemen in the supply chain go the way of the dodo, support innovative, agile manufacturers that are web savy, recognize that the wave of the future will be something quite different than today's LDS, it will likely not sell gear but will provide air, service, training, etc. Possibly in a club format, possibly as an adjunct to a health club or YMCA, I'm not sure.

There are many good independent instructors. There are many bad shop instructors. Let me clarify this.

The benefit of the shop is oversight. Someone (the shop owner or manager) is usually making sure corners aren't cut, standards are taught etc... There are exceptions to every rule... but this is a big plus. Most divers I see in this area taught by independants are not very good in the water. This may be different in your area of the country... and we can all accept that.

What I have seen, all over the county and all over the world is directly the opposite of what you are suggesting. By and large the students that I see who are trained by independent instructors are far superior divers in their local waters, and are much more likely to continue diving.

The availability of gear to try on and try before you buy greatly increases with LDS's... and while LP may have the policy you suggest, mailing things back and forth at your own expense (packing it, shipping it, waiting for it to come back etc...) is a big drawback for many people.

That rarely happens to my students, they get the right gear, in the right size just about every time, when they don't it rarely takes more than two days (well three to four now that I'm on Hawai'i) to fix.

Costs with independents are usually higher for education. If they have access to pools for free this may not be the case... but where pool time must be rented - they can not compete with shops on class pricing. So again, this will vary by location.

On the mainland this was never true, the independents that I knew had the best pools at the best times all locked up, and it had been that way for years. Here in Hawai'i ... who needs a pool?

... The debate will always rage in this industry over why it is shrinking... but the economy and competing outside factors aside... it is a direct result of those in control (the manufacturers) downsizing the LDS into obscurity.

The LDSs are doing it to themselves and all the while crying that the sky is falling.

... Equipment manufacturing companies are run by the marketing guys, not by real, passionate, forward thinking divers that understand the world today...

While that maybe true at some, it is not a general case, for example Oceanic.

The links in the distribution change broke long ago. There is no real innovation in the industry. The advances brought by tec diving are not being transfered to mainstream recreational;

Of course they are, not to keep blowing one group's horn, but: Hollis.

equipment manufacturers are developing new split fins instead of underwater GPS's, dry snorkels instead of safer rebreathers and more color screen air integrated computers instead of a computer that integrates real time meassuring of actual bubbles in the divers body.....

Better underwater navigation - being done. Better rebreathers - being done. Better computers - being done (real time bubble monitoring ... no, but then that's a whole different problem).

My point here is that whoever runs DEMA needs new strategies and a fresh mind to face the challenges brought by information age. The links in the chain are broke and will never be restored. It is negligent to pretend that. On the other hand, new training strategies, real innovation in equipment, development of real advantages for the divers need to be adressed.

You can see I'm demanding a lot but that is what is needed in order to make a real change. Not re electing DEMA's board....

A problem with DEMA is that it has be come classically corrupt (several times). So you need to trow the bums out and start again. Will this fix DEMA? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe for a short time. Who knows. It's not the only thing that needs doing and it's not the only thing that should be tried.

First of all, if you have to push aside other reasons for the sake of your argument, then the downsizing is NOT a direct result of anything other than all of the reasons. So, WHY do you insist on pushing aside all reasons and only picking on the Manufacturers? I agree they likely make too much money. But guess what, some LDS's do as well. I would probably think that the majoy Internet sellers make too much.....most would because it is their money. But if one cannot compete in a given market, then it is time to move on and find another market.

Frankly, I think that the manufacturers are the lest to blame.

I say you're wrong, Ken. We MUST hang together, as we are all intertwined. Without an agency, are you willing to go back to the days of council certification? Want to give an 11 module open water course like NASDS a try against a 3 day wonder course?

From where I stand they both suck, I see very little difference in the product. Do we need agencies? In some form, but the current form is, like DEMA, corrupt and self serving.

Where you going to send your divers after you've shown them the wonders of the Maryland coast (and local mudhole). You have a great looking boat BTW. This industry is not just about the retailers, manufacturers, resorts, and agencies, it is about all of us.

Very true, but that doesn't mean that all have to survive or even that all segments have to survive in the current form. The only ones that I'd be on are manufacturers, and destinations, everything else is in flux.

We operate in a climate of fear. We fear that the shop down the street will offer a $99 open water course. We live in fear of the 800 pound gorilla training agency dropping standards further. We live in fear that our new innovative idea will be stolen by someone else. We live in fear that we will spend all of our hard-earned retirement keeping our shop (boat, quarry, resort, whatever) open. And we get no help from the government. We bailout wall street, but I can't get a crappy loan against a future government contract.

I'm tired of being tired, I'm tired of losing sleep, and I'm tired of living and operating my business from a position of fear. I think Chris, Mike and Dick have something up their sleeve, and I'm going to listen to it. I'm going to add my comments if I feel they are appropriate. I don't happen to think the manufacturers are at fault in the demise of the industry, by the way, I think....it doesn't matter what I think, we all need to work together to pull our collective asses out of this mess we're in. Pointing fingers at an industry segment will get us no-where.

Frank

I basically agree.

... the only worthwhile diving is in FL, or the carribean, or someplace far and expensive.

You can't compare Dutch Springs to Cocos, or Little Cayman, but it does not mean you can't have a great dive there.

What happy horse hockey ... I've had far better dives on the California coast and off the coast of Maine than I've ever had in Florida, the Caribbean, the Caymans, or any other tropical destination.

Until more divers, especially newly certified ones start exploring the local sites, I fear we will continue to lose people from the sport - your other reasons are valid, but I think this one is too.

That's the truth, but for that to happen the student must receive training that makes them confident in those local water and it ain't happen'.

... IS there a "diving industry?" I'd contend, no there is not. To the contrary, there are several different "industries" that all have an interest in Scuba Diving but the interests may not be all that aligned. What are the two biggest parts of the "diving industry?" My guess is that they are: a. Travel/vacations; and b. Equipment -- with instruction coming in a distant 3rd. But it is the instruction segment of the "diving industry" that creates the customers for A and B.

Spot on!.

If, as I suspect, the Diving Instruction Segment of the Diving Industry is a distant third, then, at least it seems to me, the other two segments of the industry need to boost the third. How? While I have my thoughts, they aren't particularly important. But it isn't in the fight between internet retailing and brick and mortar stores (a sideshow if there ever was one).

Perhaps part of the solution is for the rest of the industry to go ahead and subsidize the instructional side -- IF people really will take a $99 class (but as an instructor I'd be very leary about giving one) then the Travel/Manufacturing side need to promote them -- but make them profitable for the local instructor base to give a good course. (If, for example, Resort X entered into an agreement with me to do the classwork/pool work while the student went to the Resort for the OW dives, giving a "cheap" class would be a lot more enticing.) Or, to take it another step, Resort X along with PADI put together a package with the local instructor just doing the confined water work.....

Bad solution I think. Better to work on ways to actually make people comfortable in their local waters.

If you're the shop is so successful and is "LDS of the Future", then why:

1.) have you been trying to sell your shop?

reference: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/gear-equipment-classifieds/237435-dive-shop-sale-130k.html


2.) then trying to sell off 50% for $100k when no one bought it?

reference: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/help-wanted/297456-partner-wanted-great-opportunity.html


3.) why do you only want to pay your Dive Shop manager $325 per week ($17k per year)

reference http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/help-wanted/297691-wanted-dive-shop-manager.html​

I mean is this the criteria for what manufacturers consider to be the "LDS of the Future" ?

If so, please name these manufacturers....

Yup. that's the LDS of the Future the way things are going now ... would you like fries with that regulators?

Nope, the dive shop must remain for the industry to be viable.

I disagree, I think that the LDS, in its current form, is the most expendable part of the industry.

... Let us not be swayed by them, as they do NOT make up the majority of divers. The vast majority of divers who come to dive with me are just divers. They don't chat, they have never heard of Scubaboard, D2D, DiveMatrix, they dive with their shop. They buy their gear in their shop, they arrange travel with their shop, they take lessons in their shop, they go to pizza parties in their shop.

But ... I suspect that they are the largest spenders and are the "tipping point" for the LSDs ... and they are not going back. The LDSs can not survive without them, and unless they radically change what they do and how they they do it, it is that tip of the iceberg that will capsize the boat and force a new steady-state.

... Try to get them in with cheap air fills, they will get their air fills at the shop, but won't do anything else there because the manager/owner/employee is sour because they lose money on every fill. Cheap OW classes, you have to jack up everything else to make up for it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid ... each thing has to pay its own way or in the end the structure crumbles.

Ok about how much would this analysis cost?

PM if you prefer. Seems like this is exactly the kinda of ammo the ring leaders need for the Chicago Meeting.

Tobin

Maybe would could pass the hat ... I'd pay $100 to hear the answer ... how about you? A solution by subscription.

 

[theduckguru]

Seen in the contest of the post to which I responded, the image represents the angry mob of dive professionals chasing me away from the dive industry.

It is called Humour where I come from ... but maybe not here?

Alberto

Oh, I thought they were chasing me away, still funny though

 

[theduckguru]

If I can buy on-line, don't need local air fills, don't need additional training and mail my regs out for service at a cost less than my LDS, why am I going to miss them if they close?

 

[RJP]

Maybe would could pass the hat ... I'd pay $100 to hear the answer ... how about you? A solution by subscription.

You're gonna need a few thousand hats at that rate!

 

[DiveNav]

You're gonna need a few thousand hats at that rate!

finding the $$$? Not a problem

But, as a former executive in the high tech industry (and now retired ... wasting money in the scuba industry) I was used to get paid - and pay others - based on performances.

Are you up to this?

Alberto

 

[RJP]

finding the $$$? Not a problem

But, as a former executive in the high tech industry (and now retired ... wasting money in the scuba industry) I was used to get paid - and pay others - based on performances.

Are you up to this?

Alberto

There's a reason that ad agencies and consulting firms don't go in for "risk sharing" compensation schemes. Usually it's because the client wants to share the "risk" that they won't effectively implement the agency's/consultants recommendations. That's YOUR risk to keep all your own...though I appreciate the willingness to "share" with me.

That said, I'm certainly willing to accept a performance bonus on top of my standard hourly/daily/project rate.

 

[OldNSalty]

Thalassamania quotes 25 responses in one post. That has to be a record-Hey why aren't I quote worthy?